Wind Songs: Start Barefoot Earlier

A couple of days ago we went to visit M&M at her home part way between Lynchburg and Fayetteville.

She lives in the country and off the beaten path and I have always jokingly called her "a granola eating, wind chiming, bunny kissing, tree hugger", which she is.

As with most people though, it is impossible to box her into that description as an absolute, and the more I get to know her the more I like her.

Unlike most people she works with, and that I used to work with, she is a world traveler.

She tells stories of her experiences in Rwanda, her desire to join the Peace Corps, her upcoming trip to Guatemala.

There are times when I am enthralled with her experiences, and other times when I smilingly shake my head, look at her and just ask "why?"

She recently inherited some guns from her father, knew nothing about them, wanted to learn both what she had and how to use them, and LC offered his experience.

We spent a good part of the afternoon sitting on her front porch in the quiet country, M&M and I sitting talking while LC happily cleaned guns and educated about what she had.

The man is a walking encyclopedia of gun knowledge.

After everything was cleaned and checked M&M shot a couple of them while my Mountain Boy watched over her.

Shooting the ones she felt most comfortable with and the ones LC deemed to be in the best shape.

I took these pictures while we were at her home, and not far from her home as we were heading back towards Tullahoma.

Parts of Franklin County and most of Lincoln County are very beautiful.

Counties filled with people who are primarily rural, and a place filled with rolling hills, rich farm land, many cow and sheep and goat farms.

Some of the land in the area is very expensive and being bought up by urban professionals from Huntsville Alabama about 50 miles away, with small homes used as weekend get-aways.

But many of these farms have also stayed in the same family from generation to generation.

Pictures taken right after we turned onto the very long and winding and hilly and narrow road leading up towards M&M's home ..............

Both M&M's sweet dog Sadie and our sweet dog Jamie are afraid of the sound of gunfire.

Sadie went inside the house before M&M fired her guns, but we could not put Jamie inside the house with her.

LC, Jamie and I stayed at the cabin in the picture for a few weeks when we first arrived back in Tennessee, as we impatiently waited for our dead-beat tenants to get out of our house in town.

The two dogs had spent a lot of time around each other, seemed comfortable together and seemed to get along well together.

One day during our brief stay in the cabin M&M asked us if we wanted to visit the Lincoln County Fair.

We could not take the dogs with us and since both mutts had spent so much time with each other decided to put them together in the cabin, so that they could be companions for each other.

As we began to pull out of the driveway we heard the noise.

The two dogs were fighting inside the cabin.

They had been alone for less than five minutes.

And the instigator of the fighting was Jamie.

The two dogs had always gotten along well before this fight, and have gotten along well since the fight, but their human owners were always and are always around.

The one time they were alone with each other, our dog needed to be the Alpha.

The same thing happened when I left Jamie at someones' house in Juneau while I was visiting Sitka.

As long as humans were around Jamie was fine. When humans were gone she needed to rule and fought with the dog-in-residence three times before she was reluctantly turned into the confinement of doggie-daycare.

I have a hard time reconciling that part of her with the Jamie I know on a day-to-day basis.

The one who happily wags her tail at everyone who comes in contact with her.

The one who relishes in the love and attention she receives from us at home.

But over the years I have come to realize that it is her humans that make her civilized.

Because we could not put James with Sadie I walked her down to the cabin and tied her off to a post on the front porch.

It was not far enough.

When M&M began shooting Jamie fearfully scurried as far away from the noise as her leash would allow, and by the time I walked back down to get her she was wrapped multiple times around bushes and poles and steps.

Loving words and hugs and lots of untangling and she was her usual sweet and happy self again..............

The front yard................

Yes...........in mid March 2012 this was the temperature.

This entire half of the country has broken temperature records this past winter.

I remember many winter days over the years sitting in my still-running truck in the parking lot at the base trying to muster the gumption to get out of my warm truck and head out into the freezing cold world.

Not once did I have to do that this past winter..................

Heading back down the steep and winding road on the way home my Mountain Boy stopped briefly on the narrow shoulder so that I could take these pictures overlooking the valley below.

Lynchburg is in this direction and only a few miles away.

Tullahoma is also in this direction 20 minutes beyond Lynchburg.

The world is growing again. Everything is quickly becoming lush and green.

This is a beautiful valley, and M&M lives in a beautiful place................